Why do politicians run on a law-and-order platform even as crime rates are falling? Why does the public respond disproportionately to law-and-order soundbites and images in the media and on TV shows? At bottom, is crime a fixed reality or a social construction? This book is the foundational and renowned study of how politicians and others use crime rates-and most of all the public perception of street crime, whether or not it is accurate-for their own purposes. Dr. Scheingold also provides a theoretical and historical basis for his views, and compares mainstream theories of crime control, as well as conservative and Marxist explanations. The follow-up to the author's landmark 'The Politics of Rights, ' this book is both supported in research and accessible and interesting to readers everywhere. Features new 2010 Foreword by Berkeley law professor Malcolm Feeley. A work that is both "timely and timeless," writes Dr. Feeley, it "is important for what it says-and how it says it-about American crime and crime policy, as well as American political culture. It speaks truth to power today as much as it did when it was first published." As recently noted by Amherst College's Austin Sarat, Scheingold "was quite simply one of the world's leading commentators on law and politics."